Sulfur is the third most abundant element in petroleum, occurring in certain heavy oils at concentrations of over 12 weight percent (wt %). Reserves of low sulfur crude oils are depleting worldwide, necessitating the identification of reservoirs of crude oils with high sulfur content. The abundance of sulfur species in hydrocarbon products causes corrosion to infrastructure, health exposure risks, and higher operational and production costs. As a result, environmental regulatory agencies in the world continue to promulgate more stringent regulations towards sulfur emission from fuels and sulfur gases emanating from oil and gas industries.
Methods employed in the petroleum industry to quantify sulfur typically include bulk sample analysis via oxidation, combustion, and other chemical reactions that yield erroneous results caused by masking and matrix effects of other compounds in the samples. In addition, reproducibility and precision of these methods are impractical for quantifying specific sulfur species expected to affect both upstream and downstream operations. Thus, these methods have limited use in hydrocarbon industries for proper characterization and quantification of sulfur content in petroleum products.